THE PEOPLE'S UNIVERSITY
There is no institution so intimately, so universally, so constantly connected with the life of the whole people as the free public library—no instrumentality that can do so much to civilize society. The public schools alone cannot accomplish the task of elevating mankind to even the most modest ideal of a well ordered society.
Our public schools have been the chief source of the greater general intelligence and hence the industrial superiority of our citizens over those of other countries. But the public schools cannot accomplish impossibilities. They are not to blame for the fact that they can reach the great majority during only six or eight years, or that only one and one half per cent of the children in the United States go through the high school. But wherever there is a public library, the teachers are to blame if they do not graduate all their pupils, at whatever age they may leave school, into the People's University.
General intelligence is the necessary foundation of prosperity and social order.
The public library is one of the chief agencies, if not the most potent and far-reaching agency, for promoting general intelligence.
Therefore, money devoted to the maintenance of a public library is money well invested by a community.
F. M. CRUNDEN.